A very important nugget you have dug out. I hope this gets good exposure in the Internets.
Now, for the record -- I never for one minute believed Blair anyway. They had the same information as was already known to be fraudulent, from a DIFFERENT SOURCE? So what if they did? It would have been the same fraud.
eRiposte,
Somehow it's eaasier to grasp the complexities of your analysis while taking it in thru the famliar TLC font & graphics.
But big congrats on being on FDL.
Posted by John Forde at January 29, 2007 07:47 PMeriposte !
thank you so much for joining us over at The Lake !
sorry to have missed you
no mention of what is a story of Plame proportions anywhere - so admire and thank you for your diligence - and pray it be rewarded with all kinds of sunlight
come back and visit anytime - the pleasure was ours
cbl
Posted by cbl at January 29, 2007 08:10 PMFor all the midnight oil you have burned, the stale coffee or tea you have endured, the frustration of large black lines through pages of insanity, may your dedication to the truth be rewarded by the happy clang of Cheney's shackles as he shuffles by to his cell. I can think of no better service to this Country's military nor to the soul of this Country herself than an effort such as yours, again.
Posted by mainsailset at January 29, 2007 08:25 PMeRiposte..brilliantly detailed as usual.
Imo, you saved some the best revelation for last. That comparison that you dug out about the sentence that was redacted by the SSCI and that showed up unredacted in a document at the Libby trial was just stunning in it's blatant falsehood/misrepresentation. One can only imagine just what lies (double entendre here)behind all those other redacted lines in those whitewashed reports out of that oxymoronicly named Senate Intelligence Committee that Senator Roberts (R-Cheney) chaired. And that Rockerfellar (D-Spineless) has some serious splainin to do...how could anyone in their right mind sign off on that bullshit. These are just a few of the many questions that the media and our citizenry should be demanding answers to and yes heads should roll for this!
Posted by emal at January 29, 2007 08:34 PMIt's quite interesting what you can find in these documents. I just wish we had massive automation to auto search public documents and auto compare them against previously published documents to find new pieces of information. Would certainly save many of us a lot of time :-)
Posted by eriposte at January 29, 2007 09:09 PMPeople like Bob Somerby will need to give up their only remaining method of dismissing of Wilson - the canard that "the British still stand by their uranium claim."
But the deleted section of the March 11 2003 document is stunning. Pat Roberts and his staff should be proud. As clean and neat a coverup and smear campaign as has ever been orchestrated. And during an election year. Impressive.
And the "British Government has learned" / "Iraq has sought significant quantities" has always been a revealingly tortured construction. Frankly, it stuck out like sore thumb, even amid all the other shoddy lies and half truths of the time.
Posted by HeavyJ at January 29, 2007 10:47 PMBeautifully done, eR! It's fascinating to see how these two criminals (Blair and Bush) scratched each others backs so late in the game. Most likely they were aware that if one hangs, they both do.
BTW: this Scotsman piece from the time of the Hutton Inquiry lists out 11 "edits" proposed by Alistair Campbell, including the fact that he was told that the JIC didn't think there wasn't enough evidence to state Saddam bought nuclear material.
Posted by Mary at January 29, 2007 11:29 PMJOURNALISTS! eRiposte's post is the revelation that you've been waiting for! Study this post! Think through its implications, and run with it.
No, eRiposte's post isn't the single bombshell surprise that many of us thought would explode from this trial (or subsequent ones), ala something like the Nixon tapes. It is, instead, the culmination of metriculous work over a long period of time. It weaves together the most clear and compelling evidence that, well, let's start saying it out loud, "cells" of the military industrial complex have infiltrated a sufficient number of goverment positions in both the US and Great Britain that the interest of war, itself, is in a dominating position of power in these two countries. (Sound radical? Heck, even Eisenhower saw this coming.) If you think that Islamo-fascist cells within our country pose a threat to your life and liberty, baby, you ain't seen nuthin' compared to what these boys and girls can foment.
The information in eRiposte's reveleation provide the kind of CLEAR evidence of conspiracy between members of the Executive and Legislative branches of our government that, when described to a listening populace, have the potential to change the course of a nation. There is also the element of INTERNATIONAL conspiracy between members of the US and British governments in the form of collusion to hide evidence.
Posted by whatturn at January 30, 2007 12:59 AMVery well done. Even I a casual follower of this travesty can now understand the disgraceful behavior of government officials (particularly Robertson- what a menace!) Keep up the great work.
Posted by drjws1 at January 30, 2007 06:18 AMWell, that's just about as clear and incontrovertible as it gets. Just imagine what the other redactions will have to show....
Nice find, eR. Am still shaking my head. In an endlessly and jaw-droppingly fraudulent document, it's still stunning to come across evidence of the fraud that's just so black-and-white.
As an aside, and since nobody's mentioned it yet, a quick reminder about Section 1.7 of Executive Order 13292, governing the classification of national security information:
Sec. 1.7. Classification Prohibitions and Limitations. (a) In no case shall information be classified in order to:Posted by KM at January 30, 2007 08:17 AM(1) conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error;
(2) prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency;
(3) restrain competition; or
(4) prevent or delay the release of information that does not require protection in the interest of the national security.
eRiposte,
I left this comment on FDL just now, but now realize it belongs over here. Something is bugging me and you are the person most likely to know if the following is new information.
There is a document from the trial (DX 64) that is a copy of a congressional notification that was faxed to the White House (Hannah and Libby) on June 9, 2003. In paragraph 20, there is the following passage:
“In the same message, State/INR also advocated that the actual documents obtained from Embassy Rome be passed to INVO. An exchange of REDACTED messages over the next few days shows REDACTED attempted to honor the State/INR requests.”
In paragraph 24, the document says:
On 4 February 2003, a note from CIA/WINPAC, was sent to REDACTED at the US Mission to the IAEA in Vienna and the United Namtions Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) office in New York. the note contained copies of the original language documents obtained by Embassy Rome. Instructions in the note indicated the information cound be passed to IAEA/INVO’s Baute, which was interpreted as permission to pass the original documents. As a result, the original documents were passed to UNMOVIC who passed them to INVO.”
Doesn’t that sound like somebody at WINPAC didn’t want to pass those documents to INVO? BTW, the date on paragraph 20 was nine days before the State of the Union.
KM, thanks for posting the laws re: classification. Helpful reference.
William, I read those sections and thought about it and decided not to mention it because in my view it is too terse and inconclusive.
Posted by eriposte at January 30, 2007 08:20 PMSo when Lord Butler said that "the forged documents were not available to the British Government at the time its assessment was made" he is slyly referring to the original, source documents (of which there was only one set). The Butler committee wanted to give people the impression that the British based their assessment on something other than bogus evidence, when in fact the Brits obtained written summaries of the same forged documents and had nothing solid to go on.
Posted by SMB at February 2, 2007 05:13 AMI alluded to this in an earlier blog post having noted that British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw was also uncooperative with the Foreign Affairs Committee when they had asked him if the Americans expressed any reservations concerning the uranium from Africa claim.
Response from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to questions from the FAC, 16 June 2003.
Question: Did the "significant quantities of uranium" evidence come from a single source, or from mutually corroborating multiple sources? Was there any corroboration at all for this claim? (Did the US accept that the claim was sound?) Are you satisfied that documents on this are genuine?Did the US accept that the claim was sound? Jack Straw avoided answering the question.Answer: The document stated on p 25 that "there is intelligence that Iraq has sought the supply of significant quantities of uranium from Africa." This reference drew on intelligence reporting from more than one source. We understand that the IAEA acquired documents on this subject in February 2003. At no stage prior to the publication of the dossier did the UK possess or have sight of these documents. The IAEA have confirmed that the documents were not provided by the UK, contrary to some media reporting. Since the publication of the dossier, we have had the opportunity to examine the documents. Some of these documents are forgeries, others are still under consideration.
Committee chairman Donald Anderson continued to press Straw for an answer throughout the remainder of 2003. These additional exchanges were published alongside their Second Report of Session 2003-2004.
4. What were the terms in which the CIA expressed its reservations to the British Government about the uranium from Africa element of the September 2002 dossier, and on what date or dates were those reservations expressed?Anderson wrote back to Straw on 21 August.Just before the dossier was finalised, the CIA offered a comment noting that they did not regard the reference to the supply of uranium from Africa as credible. But the CIA provided no explanation for their concerns. UK officials were confident that the dossier's statement was based on reliable intelligence. A judgement was therefore made by the JIC Chairman to retain the reference.
5. Why did neither you nor your officials disclose to the Committee, in either your written or oral evidence, before the Committee published its recent report that the CIA had expressed reservations to the British Government on the uranium from Africa element in the September dossier-particularly when you were specifically asked by a member of the Committee in your public evidence on June 27 why the British Government did 'at least not put some degree of health warning' over the uranium from Africa statements in the September 2002 dossier?
British officials saw no need to put a health warning on the claim, because they were confident in the intelligence underlying it. The reference in the dossier was based on intelligence from more than one source. We had not shared this intelligence with the CIA, nor were we in a position to do so, for reasons explained during the private evidence session.
6. On receipt of the CIA's reservations, which you say in your letter were 'unsupported by explanations', about the uranium from Africa element in the September 2002 dossier, did any British official ask for an explanation of the CIA's reservations? If not, why not? If so, what was the CIA's response?
UK intelligence officials have regular exchanges with their counterparts in the CIA.
I wish to follow up two of the responses which in my view could have been more helpful.In his reply of 8 September, Straw said that he could not provide more information to the question because "exchanges between UK intelligence officials and their opposite numbers in the US are confidential." Unsatisfied with this, Anderson wrote again on 29 October:In Question 6, I asked whether, on receipt of the CIA's reservations about the uranium from Africa claim, any British official asked for an explanation; and if not, why not. You replied that "UK intelligence officials have regular exchanges with their counterparts in the CIA." May I have a more complete and informative answer to the question?
I am disappointed that you feel unable to supply further information on the CIA's reservations on the uranium from Africa claim. [...] If the Director of the CIA is prepared to describe the contacts between his service and the UK, I do not see why you have felt so constrained in your replies to the Committee's questions. Will you now seek the agreement of the CIA to make a full disclosure to the Committee of the exchanges which took place last year about the uranium from Africa claim?In reply Straw merely reiterated his earlier answer: "As I said in my letter of 8 September, it would not be appropriate to provide details of intelligence exchanges with CIA." And that is where the exchange ended, so far as I am aware.
It's disappointing that the Butler Review didn't push this further, explaining to the public what these reservations were. Instead, as eRiposte has documented and my own research shows, the Butler committee tried to play down the whole affair and even went out of their way to find more (flimsy) evidence to support the original claim.